ABSTRACT
Chapters 2 to 4 showed that the activities of international NGOs are unequally distributed and there are strong patterns of concentration in the provision of international NGO aid. Chapter 4 focused on the Central African Republic, where four of the 61 international NGOs were active, and on Tanzania, which houses 37 of them. Tanzania received about €70 million in development aid from international NGOs in 2005, while this was approximately €1 million in the same year for the CAR. This chapter elaborates further on their differences in international NGO popularity. The previous chapter highlighted various evolutionary economic geography
arguments and argued that the country choices of international NGOs display self-reinforcing patterns. Chapters 2 and 3 demonstrated that the country choices of international NGOs often resemble the country choices of their back donors. The effects of the preferences of back donors are also felt in Tanzania and the Central African Republic. Bilateral donors, too, have shunned the CAR, while both international NGOs and bilateral donors are heavily engaged in Tanzania. In addition, Chapter 4 indicated that the ‘NGO aid climate’ is better in Tanzania than in the Central African Republic. The primary focus of this chapter, however, is another potential factor in clustering in and exclusion of certain countries from international NGO aid: country images. When personnel from international NGOs shared their first associations
on the Central African Republic, these included reactions such as ‘hell hole’, or ‘isn’t that the country with that cannibal as their emperor?’ or simply question marks. It was for this reason that the decision was made to focus on the importance of country images. This chapter asks the question whether international NGOs are susceptible to prevailing, arguably partially incorrect, country images when making geographic choices. These negative country images can contribute to an explanation as to why international NGOs shy away from becoming involved in the CAR. The structure of this chapter is as follows. First, ‘country image’ will be
defined, drawing on insights from the international business, marketing and
non-profit taken to whether country images mattered for geographic decision-making. The subsequent results section shows outcomes of those three steps. First, a comparison is made between the perceptions of cognitive elements of the country images by outsiders and by insiders. Outsiders are for instance personnel of international NGOs that are engaged in making geographic decisions, but whose NGOs are not active in the countries. Personnel from international NGOs that are active in the country are less outsiders. Local NGOs1 and independent local experts can be considered insiders. Second, an analysis is made of whether these country images feed into the country selection process. In the third step, an analysis is made of how the country image is constructed. These stages will make it possible to answer the question whether it is the CAR’s – potentially excessive – negative image which holds international NGOs back from becoming involved in the country, and whether the reverse is happening in Tanzania.
